How to Create a Cartoon Bomb Icon with Sketch App

This tutorial will teach you the essential techniques required for creating custom icons with Sketch. And in the process you will create a cool, cartoon-style bomb icon.

Step 1

Launch Sketch and begin by drawing a green rectangle to use as a background layer. Then right click on the layer in the sidebar and select Lock Layer to avoid accidentally selecting it again.

Rectangle:

Fill: #95A782

Border: None

Position: X:0 Y:0

Size: W:900 H:600

Step 2

Next draw a purple circle near the center of the background layer, using the Oval tool and holding down the shift key to constrain proportions.

Circle:

Fill: #816F85

Border: None

Position: X:168 Y:168

Size: W:900 H:600

Step 3

Place a small rounded rectangle near the top of the circle, aligned to the center of the circle horizontally.

Rectangle:

Fill: #816F85

Border: None

Radius: 6

Position: X:421 Y:204

Size: W:38 H:30

Step 4

Select the Rotate tool and move the anchor point for the small rectangle to the center of the circle, then rotate the rectangle 45° clockwise.

Rectangle:

Transform: 315°

Step 5

Select the circle and rectangle layers and combine them with the Union boolean function

Step 6

Now add some styles to the merged bomb shape:

Bomb:

Fill: #816F85

Border: #434343, Outside, 6

Inner Shadows: Black, Alpha:20, X:-12 Y:-12, Blur:0, Spread:0

Step 7

Use the Pen tool to draw a short wavy line from the center of rotated rectangle, to approximately half down the circle. Use 3 points in total including the start and end points then remove the fill and add a border:

Fuse:

Fill: None

Border: #EBCFA8, Center, 8

Step 8

Go to the Layer > Paths menu and select Vectorize Stroke to convert the border to a fill so that we can add additional styles to the fuse:

Fuse:

Fill: #EBCFA8

Border: #434343, Outside, 6

Inner Shadows: Black, Alpha:20, X:-4 Y:-4, Blur:0, Spread:0

Step 9

Add a new pattern fill layer above the solid color fill and select the diagonal lines default pattern (or use your own if you have a better one).

Fuse:

Fill 1: Diagonal lines pattern

Fill 2: #EBCFA8

Step 10

Use the Star tool to draw a new shape slightly overlapping the fuse and bomb shapes.

Star:

Fill: #FFFFFF

Radius: 68%

Points: 8

Step 11

Add 3 borders to the star layer to create a spark effect. Reorganize if necessary to get them in the following order from top to bottom:

Star:

Border 1: #434343, Outside, 6

Border 2: #F2780D, Inside, 6

Border 3: #F5A623, Inside, 12

Step 12

The bomb is currently looking a little bit flat, so let’s add some extra lighting. Draw a new circle layer with no fill and a white border, in the center of the round part of the bomb.

Circle:

Fill: None

Border: #FFFFFF Center 6

Position: X:372 Y:241

Size: W:134 H:134

Step 13

Double click the circle layer to enter the path edit mode, and then click the Open Path button to open up the circle.

Step 14

Delete two of the vector points so that only the top left quarter of the circle remains.

Step 15

Circle:
Select the Border options and add a dashed stroke, and lower the opacity of the layer to 20%

Fill: None

Border: #FFFFFF Center 6

Dashed Options: Ends: Round, Dash 80 Gap 15

Opacity: 20%

Step 16

Draw a small white star near the top of the bomb shape.

Star:

Fill: #FFFFFF

Border: None

Points: 5

Radius: 50%

Position: X:450 Y:205

Size: W:32 H:32

Step 17

Double click the star shape to enter the path edit mode, select all of the points on the star and set the corner radius to ‘3’ to soften the shape.

Star:

Corners: 3

Step 18

Rotate the star 30° clockwise around the default anchor point.

Star:

Rotate: 330°

Step 19

Duplicate the star, then move it to left, reduce the size slightly and rotate -45° anti-clockwise.

Star:

Rotate: -15°

Position: X:489.7 Y:218.6

Size: W:18.1 H:17.3

Step 20

To create a shadow, draw a new Oval shape layer below all other layers except for the background:

Shadow:

Fill: Black, Opacity 20%

Border: None

Position: X:388 Y:385

Size: W:104 H:21

Step 21

The bomb actually looks pretty cool at this stage. But to finish it off, let’s draw a friendly skull and crossbones sign onto the bomb to signify danger. Start with a simple circle for the skull head:

Circle:

Fill: #ECD6C3

Border: None

Position: X:421 Y:278

Size: W:40 H:40

Step 22

Use a small rounded rectangle for the jaw section of the skull:

Rectangle:

Fill: #ECD6C3

Border: None

Radius: 6

Position: X:429 Y:308

Size: W:24 H:14

Step 23

Next up, lets give our skull some eyes. Draw two circles (or just one and duplicate it for the second). The only difference will be the X position values.

Eye 1:

Fill: #816F85

Border: None

Radius: 6

Position: X:429 Y:298

Size: W:10 H:10

Eye 2:

Fill: #816F85

Border: None

Radius: 6

Position: X:443 Y:298

Size: W:10 H:10

Step 24

For the nose, use the triangle shape tool to draw the basic shape. Then double click the triangle to enter the path edit mode, select all 3 vector points and set the Corners value to 2.

Nose:

Fill: #816F85

Border: None

Corners: 2

Position: X:438 Y:307

Size: W:6 H:8

Step 25

Next up are the crossbones. Start by drawing a basic rectangle:

Rectangle:

Fill: #ECD6C3

Border: None

Position: X:412 Y:329

Size: W:60 H:6

Step 26

Draw a small circle intersecting with the top left point of the rectangle:

Circle:

Fill: #ECD6C3

Border: None

Position: X:407 Y:324

Size: W:8 H:8

Step 27

Duplicate the circle layer 3 times, one for each of the rectangles other corners. Then select all 4 circles and the rectangle and combine them with the Union function.

Circle 1:

Position: X:407 Y:324

Circle 2:

Position: X:407 Y:331

Circle 3:

Position: X:467 Y:324

Circle 4:

Position: X:407 Y:331

Step 28

Take the combined bone shape and rotate it 15° clockwise.

Bone:

Rotate: 345°

Step 29

Duplicate the bone shape and flip it horizontally.

Step 30

This is how the bomb should now look:
We could happily call this finished now, but I do have one last optional final touch..

Optional: Add speckle textures

This optional extra step involves downloading our premium Vector Speckle Textures resource. Once you have done this, place 2 of your favourite textures from the pack on layers above all of the other artwork:

Texture 1:

Fill: White

Opacity: 20%

Texture 2:

Fill: Black

Opacity: 10%

Result & Conclusion

Here is the final result, I think you will agree that it looks the bomb! (sorry)

This tutorial has covered a lot of techniques essential for designing custom icons, such as combining simple shapes to create more complex layers and also using layer styles to create visual effects. These techniques are also universally applicable, not just within Sketch.

This tutorial is a follow up to one of my older posts on how to create custom letterforms in Illustrator, this time showing you how to take vector letterforms from Illustrator and convert them into a full font that you can use in your designs.Read more

This tutorial will teach you how to create a long shadow and use subtle lighting techniques in Photoshop to make white on white text that is not only visible but also legible (at a decent enough size of course).Read more

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Attribution for free resources must be provided in conjunction any time the freebie is used, on the same page where the resource appears on your design. Or, you can purchase a premium version of the free resource.